Michael Moynihan: How much work goes into running a big day in Semple Stadium?

Thurles has hosted plenty of big Championship days, and the planning of such days often goes unnoticed. 

22 May 2022; General view of FBD Semple Stadium in Thurles, Tipperary. Photo by George Tewkesbury/Sportsfile

Four counties descend on Thurles tomorrow for the All-Ireland SHC quarter-finals. Crowds. Programmes. Latecomers. Parking.

How much work goes into running a big day in Semple Stadium? Ed Donnelly of the Munster Council breaks it down: “We’d have a pre-event meeting on the Monday which brings in all the parties involved - Semple Stadium has its own committee so they'll be there, Munster GAA will run the game on behalf of Croke Park so we’ll be there, same as Tipperary GAA because their voluntary stewards will be in the stadium.

“Add in the Garda, ticket department, medics . . . that meeting’s about an hour going through a checklist of around five pages. Collectively that’s the start of it, and everyone just keeps in touch over the next few days.

“Some items are done earlier in the year - checking out that the stadia are okay from a health and safety perspective is done early in the spring; you don’t turn up a week before the first Munster championship match to ask if everything is working properly.

“In that respect you’re not starting from scratch. In this case the fixtures were officially announced on Saturday so we had a week, though we had an inking they might be here.” 

 Everything flows out from one magic number. Unfortunately no-one knows exactly what it is.

“The expected attendance dictates everything - how much of the stadium needs to be opened, how many stewards you need, how many stiles and shops need to be opened, how many match programmes need to be printed - how many programme sellers are needed to sell the programmes.

“It’s a help to have done it over and over, obviously, but all of those decisions are dependent on the attendance.” 

 The match programme Donnelly mentioned is the perfect test case for working back from the expected attendance.

“The programme’s signed off on Thursday morning, and at that stage it’s a matter of estimating how many programmes need to be printed based on the expected attendance. Is there a spike in ticket sales? Is the weather expected to be bad?

“So how may programmes do we expect to sell? The general rule of thumb is somewhere between one in three or one in four, that’s typical, though some venues are better than others to buy programmes - and some counties are better than others, too - but somewhere between 25 per cent and 33 per cent would be the usual.

“So if there are 10,000 at the game we’d expect to sell 3,000-odd programmes, while there were something like 12,000 programmes sold at the Munster hurling final, with a 45,000 crowd.

“A wet day has an impact on programme sales, particularly on the terraces. Sales go down because people don’t want a piece of paper that’ll be soaked by the time the game is over, while in the stands the programme sales tend to stay pretty consistent, rain or shine.” 

Other headaches are more localised. For that Munster hurling final Donnelly received 47 print media requests for only 31 seats.

“There was a double header with a camogie game on first, so the Tipperary and Waterford reporters working on the camogie game used the press box for that game, and they moved to the overflow seats for the Clare-Limerick game, while those covering the later game replaced them in the press box.

“The same with local radio - there are two local radio boxes, so on Saturday C103 from Cork and Galway Bay FM will use those boxes first and then they’ll be replaced by Clare FM and Southeast Radio for the second game. It’s dependent on people having goodwill and patience and for the most part it works out fine.” 

It always helps, he adds, to have two games for egress and ingress.

“We normally open the gates ninety minutes before the start of the first game, so on Saturday the gates will open at 12.15.

“But if you’re going to Clare-Wexford that doesn’t start until 3.45, so we’re giving ourselves a window of three and a half hours to let supporters into the stadium for that one.

“You’d imagine half of the crowd, or more, will be in for the first game at 1.45, but there’ll still be people rocking up at 3.40 for Clare-Wexford. However, if Clare-Wexford was a standalone game you’d be opening the gates ninety minutes beforehand - but the last half hour is still probably when eighty per cent of the crowd comes in, which causes issues from an ingress perspective.

“Flip that around for egress, because when Cork-Galway finishes you’ll have people - particularly from the losing county - who’ll want to get out of there, so that has to be managed even while Clare and Wexford supporters are still coming in.

“Others will leave at random points in the second game - a cohort usually go at half-time - so that has to be managed, with those supporters being directed towards the gates which are open for egress.” 

In some ways Thurles is a victim of people’s fondness for it - they have their favourite spots to park, they know it’s ten minutes from the Square to the ground . ..

“It’s a challenge, coming close to throw-in for a big game like the Munster final there were probably 5,000 in the stadium for the camogie game, which was on first. And then 40,000 came in later.

“You’ll always have the people who leave Liberty Square at ten to four for a 4pm throw-in, they come close to the ground and they hear the crowd and the band and they start to hurry, but we know that’s coming in the last half-hour.

“We encourage people to come earlier but we also have stewards on hand to help those arriving later, even if it’s just the steward saying to supporters, ‘that first stile’s busy, if you walk twenty yards up there the five stiles are empty and you’ll get in much quicker’.

“The other element we work on with the Garda - and the counties involved - is the traffic plan.

“For the Munster final Limerick and Clare were all going to come the same road so we put the traffic plan out there, advising those supporters to come in by Tipperary Town and Cashel or by Horse and Jockey and Boherlahan rather than everyone descending on Borrisoleigh and The Ragg.

“For the most part that was successful, the more advance information you can give supporters the better. Most people coming to the games know Thurles and have their preferred spot to park, but there are always people who are new to the experience and don’t know where to go. That’s why we try to get the list of car parks out there for them.” 

 Donnelly acknowledges the lure of Liberty Square.

"Having grown up in Thurles, I know what the atmosphere is like there on the day of a big game and it's great. But the earlier you can get to the stadium the better. And if you’re parked up ready for home afterwards, even better.”